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In America however, Bowles and Gintis argue that in most scenarios, the amount of time spent in school and the consequent qualifications and credentials are not the major determining factors when it comes to upward socio-economic mobility. Rather, Bowles and Gintis1argue that the family background of the learner, in terms of economic status contributes a lot to the way the leaner fairs on later in life. Basically, the major argument in Bowles and Gintis work is that the American system of education neglects the social needs of an individual, while over-emphasizing the economics needs of the country.

The idea, here, is that the cognitive skills acquired in school do not actually contribute to the economy of the country. Rather, the state of the economy is mostly determined by the socialization process at school. Bowles and Gintis2argue that the differences in cognitive skills observed among workers in most American firms have not direct association with level of schooling and economic success. Presently, there exists a large discrepancy between the economic opportunities available for different social-economic classes of learners.

Those learners from well-to-do families have better chances of getting better jobs, thus earning more than learners from economically-average families. Bowles and Gintis also dispute the widely held notion that children form affluent backgrounds have higher IQs than those from middle income or poor backgrounds. Bowles and Gintis conducted a research that showed that there is a positive correlation between parental economic success and a child’s IQ. From the research, Bowles and Gintis3 found out that children whose parents have higher economic status are more likely, by a margin of 42 percent, of being in the top fifth in IQ.

Conversely, children whose parents belong to the low-economic status bracket, have a 4.9 chance. However, Bowles and Gintis4 explained this divergenceby stating that inheritance has nothing to do with higher IQ levels among children from well-to-do families. The socialization structure and the means in which education is delivered, causes the difference. Consequently, an individual belonging to the top fifth IQ bracket is by far more likely to attain economic success, than one who does not belong to tis bracket.

The IQ level of the learner notwithstanding, children from well-to-do families also tend to receive more and better quality education, thus end up with higher economic status than their counterparts from poor families. One would expect that the more the education and job experience an individual has, the higher their chances of getting ahead economically. Bowles and Gintis5 point out that the socio-economic background of an individual, in association with other factors, for example, race and sex, tend to overshadow educational qualifications when it comes to individual levels of income.

Bowles and Gintis6give the example of a survey conducted by at the Institute of SocialResearch to determine the factors influencing higher wages among employees. The results showed that white males from well-to-do families have 66 percent higher chances of getting more economic returns than their counterpartys from other races and low socio-economic backgrounds7. Personally, I am in agreement with Bowles and Gintis, in as far as the argument that the socio-economic status of a person, in relation to their family background, affects the qualityand level of education they receive.

The fact that well-to-do famili